


Instinct

by wargoddess



Category: Vampire Hunter D
Genre: Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-04-26
Updated: 2001-04-26
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the last vampire is dead, what will befall the Hunter?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Instinct

Pain.

He existed within a universe of it. Swift comets of pain shot to and fro through his veins; here and there a star blazed, golden and throbbing. And in the center of his chest perilously near his heart, a yawning black hole of pain, cold and raw and eating into him, every nerve there seared and torn.

He could not remember when he had fallen into this strange dimension, or why. On some level he suspected that he had discovered a place called "hell". The reference came from somewhere else -- some memory that meant nothing to him. But the concept which accompanied it, a place of torment and misery, fit just fine. Thus he named it, and thus he lived it, wishing he could remember a way out. Or at the very least, a way to die.

But then, without warning, his universe was invaded. Instincts he'd half forgotten surged to the fore, and he tensed to defend himself -- though he could not find his sword, and had no hands anyhow. But the invader was not more pain. Instead a bright red bolt, like lightning, shot across the darkness of the firmament and into him, straight down into the pit of his soul. He gasped, but the bolt only filled his mouth with sweet red heat, silencing him. And driving away the pain, to his astonishment; the comets and stars and even the black hole began to fade, and the darkness to brighten. More and more of the heat poured into him, until he was filled with it, until the universe had become an ocean of rich warm redness, until he floated in it and wondered if perhaps his penance was done, and now he'd found the way into heaven instead.

And then it was gone.

He gasped as the red universe shattered, replaced with terrible white light. In the distance, through a great haze, he beheld the redness -- receding, torn away from him. He cried out for it, surging up out of the white to try and recapture the red, reaching up with limbs he hadn't been aware of possessing despite the sudden flare of agony that threatened to send him back into the universe of pain --

"Stop that." Light pressure on his chest above the black hole, which was not so black or so hungry now. The white universe faded, clarified, and suddenly he was not floating but lying, not in some strange universe but on a bed, and he was not alone. An indistinct figure hovered above him, and he caught the impression of a smile.

"There will be more for you tomorrow. You've taken all I could give tonight, and it's more than you need. Just be patient."

So reassuring that voice, so welcome after the darkness, the loneliness. Like the voice of God. In the wake of that voice he felt the last of the pain recede, the worst of the light diminish. The redness was gone as well, and for a fleeting moment he actually missed that, though the lingering sweetness for some reason left a faint aftertaste of guilt in his mouth.

No matter.

***

The second waking went better. No universes this time, pain or pleasure. He opened his eyes to the sight of an ornate ceiling patterned in the style of the Monasiten monarchs. Pewter-grey reliefs of faces, stylized and beautiful, gazed down upon him and smiled.

"Ah, you're awake." It was the voice from his red dream. He glanced away from the faces and saw a boy approaching, carrying a tray. Habitually he assessed the youth: slender build, bright blond hair, the elegant features of a noble, although clearly human. Odd attire, however -- a sleeveless off-the-shoulder robe of gathered white cloth. Loose, comfortable, and concealing, but by the movement of the cloth he judged immediately that the youth was unarmed.

The boy also wore a set of odd accessories. A collar ringed his neck, moulded to his skin and yet clearly formed of some sort of metal. Into this collar were set two circles on either side of his larynx. The circles were composed of some shiny material that stood out from the gleaming silver of the collar -- bright red, like colored plastic. Similar cuffs banded the youth's wrists, each with a single red circle just below the palms.

"And healing nicely, I see." The youth stopped beside the bed and set the tray down on a nearby nightstand, maneuvering it deftly. Then he leaned over the bed, peering carefully down at its occupant. His eyes -- a startlingly pale blue -- widened just a touch. "Healing _beautifully_. Great good gods, you're going to be lovely when the scars fade. What's your name?"

It took some effort to make his mouth work. The muscles felt stiff and unused, the skin tight. Recent healing, he realized, recognizing the sensation. Extensive.

"D," he said.

The boy's eyebrows lifted. "D? Just... D?"

"Yes."

The boy blinked, then finally shook his head and sighed. "D it is, then. I'm Adonai."

D turned to look around the chamber. It was long and narrow and slightly curved, filled with cots -- each set beside a workstation full of surgical tools and medical implements. An infirmary, then. He narrowed his eyes, frowning. In all his years, humans had brought him to hospitals only twice. The first time had been to drug and bleed him; a mad old town-leader had heard a rumor that dhampir-blood brought eternal life. The second had been to vivisect him. He'd awakened, fortunately, before too much damage could be done.

The boy -- young man, really; at least twenty if D still had any skill at gauging human ages -- bent over him again, pulling back the sheet. D shivered at the sudden unexpected touch of air against his skin. Someone had removed his body armor. He would have grown angry at that -- the armor's cooling system was complex and had to be disassembled just so or it could be damaged easily -- had he not noticed the scars. One on his left forearm: a jagged thing cutting across both arm-bones. Another on his right upper arm, along the line of his bicep. His torso a mass of them -- one wide, vining scar across his belly, and a broad, deep, spiderlike scar on his chest. Both were half-covered in the itchy, ugly pink of newly-healed flesh, although unhealed parts of the wounds still gaped red here and there.

"Coming along nicely," the boy said, reaching out to stroke the healed part of the chest-scar with a fingertip. The new skin was sensitive almost to the point of pain; D shivered involuntarily. "The scanner shows your bones have almost finished knitting. And all this since just last night; amazing. You heal just as fast as a pureblood. I'd heard dhampir were slower."

Ordinarily they were. D frowned.

"Not the chatty type, are you? Well, that's all right. Everyone's talking about _you_ , so I suppose it's just as well." He folded the sheet back up to D's chin, tucking him in with a brisk pat.

D resisted the urge to flinch. So long it had been, since anyone had touched him. To distract himself, he turned his head to the other side, and beheld --

\-- stars.

His cot lay near the infirmary's curved wall, and typical of humans they'd installed a window into the wall's surface. This one looked out upon a night sky like nothing he'd ever seen. Stars -- a thousand, ten thousand, of them, clear and bright, unwavering. Darkness unclouded by mist or the usual atmospheric haze. But something was strange about the view...

"Where am I?" he asked.

The boy's hands stilled for a moment, then resumed, smoothing his sheet. "And a lovely voice, too. You don't remember where you are? Where you tried to come? We pulled you from the wreckage of your ship."

Wreckage? Ship?

Memories assailed him, dim and disjointed. Himself, haunting the silent, dim corridors of the ancient Dracul citadel. A party of humans from the local towns, invading the citadel with torches and weapons, hot for his blood. Instead of killing them he'd fled deeper into the citadel, to the narrow, protected chamber his father had once used to ward himself from harm during the vulnerable daylight hours.

A fire, set by the humans. Strange panels and instruments in his father's chamber coming to life without warning. And then --

Noise. Confusion. Agony.

That was pretty much the scope of it, the symbiote whispered.

"Your ship was the most ancient model we've ever seen that could still fly," Adonai said. "A testament to its engineers. It pierced the outer atmosphere with no difficulty and came in on a pre-set trajectory. But it malfunctioned during the docking sequence. There was an explosion. The ship partially disintegrated and spun away. We sent an EVA team to fetch you from the wreckage, hoping perhaps you were a vampire -- they can stand exposure to vacuum much longer than humans can. You weren't a vampire -- quite -- but close enough to make a difference. As you can see, however, exposure to the vacuum was the least of your injuries."

He stroked the healed part of D's chest again, his hand startlingly warm through the sheet. The warmth sent another shiver through him, and close in the shiver's wake came a flare of thirst, astonishingly sharp and powerful. He clenched his teeth against its onslaught, trying to focus his mind away from the warmth of the boy and back into memory. He needed to understand what had happened. He _did_ understand, but the conclusion seemed too impossible, too bizarre, to accept. Yet he could not ponder it further with the boy's fingers so close to his bare skin, shielded by only a thin layer of cloth... the boy's scent in his nostrils, rich and healthy and promising and sweet and _familiar --_

Dearest God.

Now you know why you healed so quickly, the symbiote said, gloating.

"How are you feeling?" the boy, reading his silence, had apparently decided to move onto a safer topic. "You're still healing beneath the surface, so you should stay in bed for at least another day. How's your bloodthirst?"

The question came so casually, so easily, that it startled D out of rising horror. He frowned in confusion, unsure of how to answer. _Don't worry about it,_ maybe, spoken coldly to get the boy away from him before he lost control. Or perhaps he should tell the boy exactly how powerful the thirst was -- that it twisted and gibbered within him even as they spoke, demanding more of the exquisite sweetness he thought he'd tasted only in a dream... Yes. That should frighten him nicely.

Or perhaps he should answer, _Why are you still alive?_

The boy raised an eyebrow at his silence. "Grandfather warned me about you Earthers. Don't like discussing it, is that it?" He reached up to smooth D's hair back from his forehead, and the bloodscent became maddening. D's eyes fixed on the red circle on the boy's wrist-cuff, and abruptly he realized that it was not plastic, or decoration.

The wrist paused in mid-smoothing, and then shifted, coming to hover over D's mouth. The red circle was a membrane, he saw then, and then Saw more as his vision shifted into hunting-mode against his will.

Take a human. Incise a section of flesh from the wrist -- missing the tendons and musculature, but slicing across the thick veins and arteries in a way that would inevitably result in the human's death through blood loss if unchecked. Cover the wound, however, with a clever little device that seals it but keeps the veins open, routing the blood instead through conduits that bring it close to a thin, tough membrane. Tough -- but easily-pierced by vampiric teeth.

"It's all right," the boy said, quietly. "I'm a Servant of Neoterre, as you can see. I've attended many of the vampire-blooded in their times of need. I attended you last night. Go ahead. You need it; your body's not done healing."

And the wrist-cuff, with its tantalizing, flesh-warm membrane, brushed against his lips. Inviting.

It took only an instant for his body to flash from huntmode into pure killmode. He felt it coming and fought its onslaught for what felt like a millennium. Had he been healthy, strong, he could have fought it back. He was not healthy, and the memory of the sweet red universe had already driven cracks deep into the foundation of his will.

And yet --

A flash of memory, far older than that of recent blood. His mother, trembling in his father's arms. His father's face, contorted in mingled anguish and the ecstasy of the kill. The sick, dull beat of rage that had lingered in his own soul ever since.

 _"No -- "_ The word was more growl than speech, not surprising given the difficulty of speaking with his mouth suddenly full of distended, aching fangs. D twisted away before the boy could see his killing face, steeling himself against the lure of the fearscent that was sure to come.

Dimly, through his own rushing blood and the roar of his hunger, he heard the boy sigh.

"I'm sorry," said the soft voice, and to his surprise and confusion there was no fear in it. Just compassion. "I didn't mean to torment you." Another touch, then, on his shoulder; D quivered, his nerves wire-tight. "I'll be back this evening. Try to get some rest, now."

And then the boy rose. Before D could unclench his teeth enough to gasp out a warning, he felt rather than saw the boy's cautious, skillful retreat. Felt it because every sense was trained on the boy and the blood-promise within his flesh. Had the boy moved away too quickly, or fearfully, instinct would have taken over; D would have been out of the bed and on him in seconds. But the boy moved away slowly, and not even the faintest whiff of fear lingered in his wake.

The door on the far side of the infirmary closed, and all at once the beat-beat-beat of his need faded. His body was still too weak to go chasing down prey. It had only wanted the seemingly easy blood while it was near.

Yes, but such blood! the symbiote taunted as he forced his trembling muscles to relax. Sweet, wasn't it? Boy's a vegetarian. You can always taste that. Healthy, young, and so _pretty._ You've always had a thing for blonds, haven't you? Wonder what his skin tastes like. Wonder what it _feels_ like. Wonder if he'd like it when you sink your teeth in; so many of them do in spite of themselves. Wonder if he's a moaner or a shrieker --

D closed his left hand around a wad of sheet, and blessed silence fell. A moment later, he fell into it.

***

Another awakening, this time in darkness lit faintly by the light from the window's stars. He blinked once and felt his pupils elongate in response, shifting to night-sight. The infirmary clarified around him in bas-relief grey colored by the occasional glowing flare of heat.

He saw then that he was not alone.

"So we meet again, dhampir."

The speaker resolved out of the gloom like a shadow, giving off only the faintest wisps of warmth-light. Those were enough -- just -- to illuminate a familiar form: tall, elegantly-attired, beautiful as an icicle on a clouded day. Unchanged, at least visibly, from the last time they'd seen one another nearly a thousand years before. Confirmation of all his fears.

"Meier Link..."

"Vampire Hunter." Thin, aristocratic lips quirked in a humorless smile. "Although I gather you haven't been much of a hunter, lately. Have you come here to find some new usefulness for yourself?"

A minor taunt -- but unexpectedly, it hurt.

"I had no intention of coming here. I..." And he faltered. How to speak of what had happened? The truth was pathetic. Yet he had fought against this nobleman; they had danced the dance of life and death together. To speak anything but truth would be a sacrilege, an insult. So he opted instead for silence.

"Yes. The recorder data in the wreckage of your ship explained all that mattered." The shadow flickered, moving over to the window. D turned his head to watch the vampire who now stood bathed in the light of ten thousand suns, a silhouette. "An automated emergency launch, triggered by the self-destruct sequence in Dracul Citadel."

If Link knew that much, the rest would come out eventually. D focused on the stars beyond the vampire's head. "A mob attacked. The shields were breached..."

"Yes, I can imagine. The son of the vampire king returns home after three thousand years away -- the very fact of his continued existence a reminder of his inhuman heritage. How long did it take them to work up the nerve to attack?"

It had not been long. He'd been living in the ancient citadel for several months before any of them realized that the ruins were inhabited again. "Three years."

"So you had that much of a respite. Or did you?" In the dimness, only one of noble blood would have been able to see Link's smile. "What peace is there for the hunter when there's nothing left to hunt except himself?"

D looked away. After a moment, Link sighed.

"Forgive me, dhampir. That was uncharitable of me. Believe it or not, I empathize with you. Not so long ago, I too knew the anguish of being alone."

Silence fell again, reverberating with pain for both of them this time.

"Still." The vampire folded his arms, regarding D thoughtfully. "I never thought to see you again, and certainly not here. Since I'm the only one here who knows you by anything other than reputation, it falls to me to act as your guide while you adjust to life here. I hope you don't mind."

Adjust. He frowned, not liking the sound of that.

Link's lips twitched as if he heard D's worry. "You won't find it difficult. Life here is idyllic compared to Earth. There are no nobles here, no peasants, no wholesale oppression, no hunger, no wastelands. Every child of every race has a reasonable chance of growing up healthy and happy. Paradise, or as near to it as we imperfect beings can come." He sighed and glanced toward the window again, polished-garnet eyes momentarily distant in thought. D watched his reflection in the window.

Noticing, the vampire's eyes flickered sharply back to the present. He straightened and turned, coming to the bed. D tensed, his hand twitching for his missing sword. Link ignored the shadow of movement, tugging the sheets back to expose D's torso; his thin lips curled in annoyance. "Human-slow again. Apparently the draught Adonai gave you wasn't quite enough to complete the healing. It will take you a week to get out of bed at this rate."

D said nothing, resisting the urge to try and cover his nakedness. It was unpleasant, facing this old enemy -- enemy? -- with no armor, no weapon.

"You should have let Adonai help you. That's his job, you know."

D shook his head. "Pretty, bio-modified bloodslaves are still bloodslaves. Even if I did allow my thirst to rule me -- which I don't -- I wouldn't touch such a creature. I'm surprised you condone it."

The vampire ignored the barb. "He's not a slave, he's a priest. The Servants of Neoterre have modified _themselves_ to serve the needs of the vampire-blooded population on this space station. Not that the vampires go hungry often. Everyone does their part here, I told you." He turned to the side and reached for something D had not seen, picking it up from the stand beside his bed. A canteen -- and a curious-looking one. It was heavily-padded in front and back, its sides lined with a tracework of microcircuitry. A fat, bright red straw emerged from its top and then looped back into the canteen.

"Adonai left this for you. He thought perhaps you'd be more willing to take it if there was no chance you'd harm him in the process. These are used for child-vampires, who haven't yet learned control -- and newcomers." He proferred the canteen, putting the straw near D's lips.

D did not reach for it, a dark suspicion in his mind.

Link shook his head. "Stubborn fool. _Drink._ You need it. Even in this storage unit, it won't keep fresh long. If you don't drink, it will be wasted." He smiled, his lips a curving blade in the dimness. "That would be rude, dhampir. I may be a commoner now, but I refuse to _act_ common, and neither will you if I have any say in the matter."

Thirst flared in him, in spite of himself. He could not smell the blood in the strange canteen, but just knowing it was there was enough to awaken the thirst in him. He shivered and turned his face away, then struggled to speak, his teeth in the way again. "I... no. Dhampir... do not _need_ blood as vampires do. We just have the thirst. It can be... overcome. Controlled."

"Certainly it can. And here, you must learn to control it, when it is inappropriate. You'll have an advantage over the rest of us in that, because you've been controlling yourself for years. But you needn't deny it altogether." Link did something to the canteen and abruptly blood-scent washed over D, filling his nostrils with the distinctive sweetness of Adonai. Heat-light warmed his cheek even as he fought to keep his face turned away.

"I... have never... killed a human, Meier!"

"And I'm not telling you to. That would be even more rude, here, and they'd toss you back into space if you did. I'd help them. But this is blood already shed. It harms no one. With it, you can heal in minutes, rather than days."

Sounds pretty reasonable, the symbiote urged, hopeful. He ignored it. The symbiote just liked it best when he was healthy.

Of course I do. You do, too. Do you really want to lie here for a week? Aren't you curious to see what kind of mess you've gotten yourself into this time?

He shuddered and closed his eyes. "I might begin with this, Meier, but..." He faltered to silence, the faces of a hundred people he'd almost killed flitting through his mind. He could have swallowed them by the gallon. He could have _bathed_ in them.

"Ah. So that's it. Not control at all, but avoidance. It _is_ hard to stop, isn't it, dhampir? So many of your kind end up no different from vampires because of that." A touch on his hair, startling in its tenderness. D opened his eyes in surprise. "Listen to me, hunter. This is not Earth. Here, the humans do not fear us. Here, we need not fear ourselves. Remember why Charlotte and I tried to come here together." Another caress fell lightly on the waves of his hair; D swallowed. "Adonai has shed his blood for you -- freely, willingly, knowing it was for your consumption. He gave you blood when you first arrived because without it you would have died of your wounds. Where on Earth could anything like that have occurred? When in all your long years have you ever heard of such a thing? Things are _different,_ here."

D shuddered powerfully, almost turning back, almost opening his mouth. It _did_ sound reasonable. Terribly, dangerously reasonable. Meier was a vampire, a master of seduction like all his kind. There was a catch. There had to be a catch.

Meier sighed, and there was the faint sound of movement out of his sight. "I can see I'm going to have to resort to cruder tactics. Forgive me for this or not, hunter, but I can't wait ages for you to wrestle with your conscience." And a finger dipped in blood, dripping that marvelous sweet warm thickness, came over his shoulder to stroke his lips.

He could no more have fought his reaction in that instant than he could have stopped his own heartbeat by will.

He hissed and fastened his teeth on Meier's finger, sucking desperately at that sweet human blood, getting a taste of stranger blood along with it. Meier's taste was cool and faintly bitter, spiced with a complexity of other flavors: hints of burgundy, grenadine, the salt of the sea, and others he could not name. And then both tastes were gone -- Adonai's blood down his throat, and Meier's blood withdrawn as the bite healed in a span of seconds.

He let go of Meier's finger and looked up at him, trembling, uncaring that the vampire could see his need. Vampires always understood. And indeed, Meier inhaled, his own eyes gleaming carnelians in the dark.

"Beautiful," he breathed, and brought the curious straw -- so like a vein -- to D's lips.

Instinctively D bit into it and was rewarded almost immediately with a hot gush of Adonai's blood. The taste of it shot straight into the pit of his belly, into his brain, into his groin, and he moaned with it, the whimpers of his conscience drowning in the shriek of pure uncontrollable desire. Sitting up despite the pain that flared in half-healed muscles, he clutched at the canteen and at Meier's hands which held it. The strange straw _was_ like a vein in some ways; the substance was soft and gel-like, and kept trying to close. He gave it a shake, snarling fiercely, suckling urgently to keep the wounds open, to keep that marvelous blood flowing, to give his body what it suddenly, savagely, avariciously demanded. More. _More --_

And then it was gone. He tore free of the straw and roared his frustration. All through his body, faint tingles told him that his flesh had responded to the sudden bounty as a vampire's would; bruised and torn muscles completed their healing, bones knit, skin itched as it spread and smoothed. When he surged up out of the bed, all his senses primed for the hunt, it hurt only a little and that was fleeting, exquisite pain. Like a bite. Where was Adonai? He would share this pain with the boy again. Just a little pain, and then pleasure upon pleasure.

"Now, now, hunter." A cool shape moved into his view and he hissed, tensing in territorial outrage. "Magnificent as you are, you must regain control. This won't do at all."

"Get out of my way," D breathed. His voice was animal, a growl. His nostrils twitched after Adonai's scent, tracking.

Meier smiled. "Or what, dhampir? You'll kill me -- for preventing you from hunting down a human?"

The words drove into him like a stake. He flinched back, lust shattering.

The symbiote piped right up. Hey, the important thing is that you stopped, right? Even if it took a vampire to get through to you...

He collapsed back into the bed, curling onto his side, struggling to silence the roaring hunger within himself. His hair fell to cover his face and he let it, knowing that it covered his killing eyes, which suddenly he didn't want even a vampire to see.

A shadow of movement ghosted past his skin, and then the vampire's hand fell on his head again, smoothing the hair back. D covered his face with his hands, trembling.

"'Eyes like obsidian. Hair a shadow of darkness. The face of a warrior prince.'" A slight weight dipped the cot, as the vampire sat down beside him. "The tales about you never fail to praise your beauty, hunter. But they also speak of your secrets. 'When his eyes turn blood-red, then you will glimpse his true nature...'" Meier's smile was almost audible. "I'm honored."

"Stop it," he hissed. Thankfully, his voice sounded more human now. And thankfully -- though he had not specified what Meier should stop doing -- the vampire removed his hand from D's hair and changed the subject.

"Once you've regained control of yourself, I'll give you a tour." The bed shifted again, and he felt the vampire moving away from him. The knowledge filled him with irrational anxiety; he did not want to be alone. But the movement stopped, and he heard the sound of a cabinet being opened. Cloth fell across his body, carelessly tossed. "Your armor was all but destroyed in the crash. The technicians are trying to repair it. Your cloak was salvageable; your hat was not. In the meantime, wear this."

D had control of his face by then, although the snarl of thirst within him had softened only a little. He pushed his hair back and looked down at the black shirt and trousers that lay across him. On the next cot over, Meier set another stack of clothing, neatly-folded. Among the items he glimpsed the familiar dark swath of his cloak.

"You should be healed by now. Get dressed, and when you're ready step outside. We have much to discuss, you and I."

The vampire faded from sight on the last word, and D felt his presence vanish as well, teleporting away.

Slowly, with a deliberation that might have seemed comical if not for his trembling hands, he rose from the bed and dressed.

***

He stood overlooking paradise.

The infirmary was its own building, part aboveground and part below. The aboveground component was squat and long with a number of smaller outbuildings. It sat interspersed among a collection of other structures which dotted a plateau overlooking a vast rolling green. The green spread for miles below them, tufted here and there with patches of forest, ending only in the far distance against the edge of a graceful, smooth-lined city.

Above, he could see the ceiling of the space station -- as green as the land he faced, faintly curved, its surface broken here and there by the glare of titanic, white-hot lights. Nearer by, just beyond the city, he could see another of the lights -- nearly the size of the city, enclosed within a great wall that kept the light and heat from contaminating the land around it. Even with the wall, the lights made the landscape as bright as a summer day.

The light did not trigger the familiar discomfort that he had always endured by day.

"No ultraviolet," Meier said, following his gaze. Then with a hint of irony he added, "Welcome to the City of the Night."

It was not what he'd expected. And yet he'd been educated, once upon a time, about the great achievements of the vampire civilization, and the City was surely among the greatest. A vast cylinder in the sky, its spin created Earth-normal gravity and generated massive amounts of energy, which in turn permitted the curved inner surfaces to support life. The combined surface area of the cylinder was larger than the Afrasian continent, down on Earth.

This was one thing to read in a textbook; quite another to see. He should have guessed that the City was no single city, but an entire world all its own.

"And all of it peaceful, healthy, safe, and beautiful," Meier said, beside him. The vampire looked out over the lower plain, an expression akin to wistfulness crossing his bone-white face. "Some believe this is what the Earth must have looked like before the Cataclysm. I like to think so."

D turned to him. "There were no vampires on old Earth."

"No. We can only turn the clock back so far; evolution will always have its due. But here, perhaps, we can coax it down a gentler path than it has taken down on Earth."

The vampire shifted slightly, lifting his cloak like wings. "Can you fly, dhampir?"

"N -- " Ordinarily he could not. But now with his belly full of human blood, his body brimming with vampiric energy, he remembered the days of his childhood in the citadel, learning the ways of his heritage from his father. "...Yes. For now."

Meier smiled faintly and stepped off the edge of the plateau. After a moment, D spread his cloak, shaped his mind and body into a suitable form, and followed.

***

Humans. Everywhere.

Not in the teeming, crowded masses of the human settlements of Earth, however, where they huddled together in fear. Here, the humans had spread freely. They lived in the cities. He'd seen houses dotting the plains as they'd overflown them. They lived in small towns like the one that had nursed him back to health, and to which they'd returned after a short circular flight. They lived in the mountains. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. Their race had never recovered fully from the Cataclysm down on earth, but here they thrived.

But it was what he hadn't seen that had told him the most about this world.

No castles overlooking the human settlements like vultures guarding a carcass. No spiked barriers and buffer zones of ruins, around the towns. No crosses.

He'd begun to tire by the time Meier brought them both down, nearly in the same spot from which they'd begun the tour. It took him a moment to remember how to reshape his wings -- stubby, broad things, nothing like Meier's graceful pinions -- into arms, but once he remembered, it was easier than he'd expected.

Vampirism is the default state for your body, you know, the symbiote told him. You've just artificially suppressed that for the last few millennia. Feels good to let go, doesn't it?

It did. But he knew there would come a price, later. There always did.

Meier watched him, perhaps reading his thoughts, perhaps just curious. D frowned, carefully shielding his thoughts in case of the former. "What?"

"I am wondering," the vampire said, "whether you've begun to accept the truth, yet."

"Truth?"

"That this will be home for you now. Your ship was damaged beyond repair in the docking accident. It's already been cannibalized for parts. There are no other ships in working condition right now for the same reason. You may not have intended to come here, but you're here to stay."

D frowned. He hadn't considered that. But before he could ponder it he tensed, seeing movement from the edges of the town. People, emerging from the sidewalks that edged the infirmary and the roads that ran between the other buildings. At least two dozen of them -- men and women, even a few children.

Children? No human in his right mind brought children near a vampire -- or a dhampir, for that matter. Without thinking he shifted his posture into a subtle defensive stance, ready if they attacked.

"It's all right," Meier said, stepping forward. He eyed D's stance briefly, and D stifled irrational embarassment. "No one will harm you here unless you harm them first."

Yeah, right.

For once, D agreed with the symbiote.

And yet the group could not be a mob, he realized as they drew closer. They carried no weapons. They did not smell of fear or hatred when the wind wafted to him from them. And there were mutants among them, he saw with a moment's shock -- a tall, hirsute man whose golden eyes clearly proclaimed his werewolf ancestry, and a green creature whose shoulders were covered in short tentacles. Barbaroi?

And several of the humans, he saw, bore the odd neck- and wrist-cuffs that Adonai had worn, along with the curious robes. Adonai was among them.

 _More,_ his body whispered eagerly, but it was a faint whisper. Just greed. He'd had enough for the time being.

The party drew to a halt about four meters away -- not out of wariness, he realized, but out of respect for _his_ wariness. Adonai, however, stepped forward and smiled.

"I'm glad to see you accepted my blood-gift, D," the young man said. "I knew Meier would find a way to convince you. You're obviously feeling better."

"Yes," D replied warily. He examined the faces of each member of the group. Interest, curiosity, and -- ah, yes. A hint of wariness. It eased his nerves to see _something_ familiar.

But then he flinched as he caught a glimpse of one of the children -- a little girl who half-hid behind a tall woman. The girl's hair was a rich auburn and her eyes were green, set in a face that was doll-like in its miniature beauty... but her skin was the color of bleached bone. The nails on the hand that clutched her mother's skirt were tapered, sharp at the tips; natural claws. Her eyes watched him unblinkingly, despite her fear. Measuring him, and the possible threat he posed. The gaze of a predator.

He would have known her even without the signs. Dhampir always knew their own.

Adonai followed D's stare and smiled. "Chloe, our guest wants a better look at you. Will you come forward and say hello?"

The child cringed further, and D saw the slight elongation of her pupils in response to her fear. But then her mother -- her _human_ mother -- turned, putting a hand gently on the child's back to reassure her.

"Come, Chloe, don't be rude. Here, I'll go with you." She took the child's hand and walked forward. Shyly -- moving with a predator's grace -- the child came with her, stopping once they reached the front of the group.

"How do you do, sir?" she asked, curtseying daintily. Her eyes never left D's face.

"Very well, thank you." The response came automatically to his lips, ingrained from his own childhood. Then -- tearing his gaze from those unwavering, wary green eyes -- he focused on the girl's mother. Beautiful, for an older human woman. The woman smiled at his gaze, knowingly.

"There are no dhampir left on Earth, are there?" she asked, her voice a lovely contralto. D shook his head, slowly. "You were the last. And now you're here." She nodded, once, firmly. "Good. Then we have nothing left to hold us here."

"Helen." Adonai gave her a gently chiding look. "He's only been awake for half a day. Let him adjust to the present, before we begin bombarding him with the future."

"Explain," D said sharply. Adonai paused in consternation, then sighed.

"The City of the Night was never meant to spend eternity revolving around a world which despises it, hunter," Meier said, stepping in front of the dhampir-child as if to protect her. D felt himself relax, freed momentarily from the child's gaze. "It was meant for travel. We've been preparing ourselves for a journey for some time."

He turned to Adonai, then. "I should think the vote will go in our favor now that we've received such a clear sign, don't you?"

"Yes," Adonai said. The young man walked forward then, and -- before D could jerk away -- took his hand. "The last of Earth's vampires died long ago. Now, however, the last dhampir has come to us, bringing with him the blood of the most ancient and powerful vampire bloodline. The hunter who destroyed the most corrupt of the decadent nobility, and sent the best to us." He turned to the others and lifted D's hand. D did jerk reflexively this time, but Adonai's grip was strong for a human's.

"This is our sign," the boy declared. "Three days before the referendum, what clearer signal could the gods have sent us than this? It is time. The City of Night has grown beyond our mother-world now, and our last tie to her has been severed. We will _go!_ "

The group cheered -- even the mutants, the green creature raising its warty arms enthusiastically. D pulled his hand free of Adonai's and took a step back from them.

"You will go." It was a question.

"The true pathway to the stars, dhampir," Meier said quietly, drawing close to speak with him. Adonai smiled up at them both. The rest of the townsfolk dissolved into excited chattering and applause beyond them. "Long ago, vampire scientists on Earth discovered another habitable world in a nearby system. The City of Night was built to travel there -- but then the Great Rebellion against the vampires began, and this station became just an exotic resort for nobles who wanted to escape the holocaust and the hatred."

"In time, it became something more," Adonai said. "The nobles brought humans and mutants -- some of them servants, some of them... beloved." He smiled, briefly, at Meier. Meier did not take his eyes from D. "And the nobles changed. It's hard to love someone, yet treat their species as cattle. The commoners changed too. They saw that the City was a new world, free of the dangers that forced them to be subservient to the vampires on Earth, and distrustful of one another. So together, our society changed. Grew."

"And now, at last, we are ready." Meier gestured toward the group, which had begun to move away, still talking eagerly of the future. "Look at them, hunter. Humans and Barbaroi, interacting without fear or disgust. Vampires interbreeding with humans, and the children are loved, accepted. No one fears them. They aren't alone." The vampire turned back, looking hard into D's eyes. "What would _your_ life have been like if you'd grown up here, hmm?"

The question made him flinch. Their nearness disturbed him, but he fought the instinct to back away, holding himself rigid instead. "I don't believe this."

Adonai sighed. "I suppose that's not surprising, considering you're from Earth. I've heard tales of the barbarism and hatred that has dominated life there since the Cataclysm. There's hatred here, too, of course. We have disputes, political unrest, times of trouble. Like any nation, on Earth. But somehow, here... it stays sane."

In the near distance, the dhampir-child -- who'd glanced back at D as she and her mother walked away -- turned then to her mother and tugged on her skirt. The mother leaned down. At the child's whisper, she smiled and straightened, unfastening her sleeve to reveal a wrist-cuff. The child smiled, fangs flashing, and then drank while her mother patiently held still to permit it.

"No."

He was not aware at first of having spoken -- or of fleeing. Instincts. Too much human blood, too much use of vampiric abilities he'd suppressed since his youth. The preternatural speed was one he'd forgotten. He exercised it without thinking now, twisting about and reshaping his wings and leaping from the cliff in a dive. He was already halfway to the forest below when he realized what he had done. For a moment he felt shame; the greatest vampire hunter the Earth had ever known, fleeing from a mother and child.

No -- from what they represented. Memories he'd suppressed for almost as long as the thirst came roaring up from his consciousness as the wind blasted past his ears. Dayfall. His mother, come to read him a bedtime tale... with one of his father's werewolf guards in attendance. Midnight. Playing hide-and-seek with her in the shadow-shrouded courtyard -- and her terror when she realized it.

His father's voice: he is only a child. He could not drink enough to harm you. He has no power to turn you.

He watches me always with those eyes, she had replied.

Over her terrified face, his mind superimposed that of the woman he'd just seen. Calm. Fearless. Loving, as her daughter fed on her.

Damn you, Mother. Damn you and Father both.

***

Another awakening. Coolness and dark. Comforting closeness around him, faintly moist, smelling of organic richness and greenery. The familiar embrace of the earth.

Instincts again. A vampire retreated to the safety of a burrow when the sun threatened. A dhampir did the same once his body absorbed enough of the killing radiation to cause harm. There was no ultraviolet here, but sometimes any threat was enough to trigger the response.

Threat? A little girl and her mother.

Aw, don't be like that, lamented the symbiote. You loved your mother. Wasn't your fault you scared the shit out of her.

He sat up, the loose warm earth slipping off him like a blanket. The clothing Meier had given him was damp and filthy, clammy against his skin. His aristocratic life was centuries behind him, but enough of its trappings remained that he grimaced in distaste.

A forest stood around him, dim and silent. Not true night with the great solar lanterns glaring high above, but the canopy was thick enough that a kind of twilight ruled underneath. It soothed his senses enough that he relaxed as he rose from his temporary grave and went prowling into the brush. There were no humans about, nor vampires, nor Barbaroi. He could scent a few animals, but they kept their distance, sensing a new predator in their forest. He liked that.

The scent of water drew him, and he moved silently over the leaves and fallen logs until he found its source: a tiny pond, with a narrow grassy shore and moonlight-clear water. Enough of the trees overhung the water that he could still pretend that it was twilight, still ignore the blazing lanterns and their tacit reminder that his life would never be the same again. For a moment it was like the old days; solitude washed over his senses like a cleansing mist.

Hard on its heels came something equally familiar: loneliness.

No. He'd stopped minding loneliness millennia ago. He understood loneliness, accepted its hazards. They were nothing compared to the hazards of being with people.

Y'know, you've been telling yourself that over and over for what, twenty-seven hundred years now? One o' these days, it's gonna sink in, I just know it.

He undressed, rinsing the lingering dirt from the clothing and then laying it flat on a rock to dry. The water felt cool and inviting against his hands; he peered into it for a moment, ignoring his hazy half-reflection, trying to gauge its safety. On Earth no body of water was without its hazards, whether mutants, toxins, or greedy warlords charging spurious "usage fees." He could scent no toxins or mutants -- the pond was artificial, after all -- and apparently clean water was plentiful enough here that warlords had other things to exploit.

Eventually with a sigh he slipped into the water, kicking down into the depths. Even better, this; the silence enveloped him and the darkness was like night. He lingered there for as long as he could -- far longer than a human, but even dhampir were not amphibious -- before the ache in his lungs forced him back up.

Even before he surfaced, he sensed that his solitude had been broken. Two presences. Both familiar.

"You see, Adonai." Meier's voice echoed in his ears while he rubbed water from his eyes. "He's too strong to try and kill himself. At least, not in this manner."

He opened his eyes. Adonai, crouched on the mudline near the water's edge, brightened in relief. Meier, with his cloak wrapped fastidiously about himself on the grass nearby, simply watched, smiling his enigmatic smile.

D did not swim to the shore, obliquely annoyed by their presence.

"Please forgive us," Adonai said, and for a moment he wondered when the humans of the City had learned to read minds. "Or rather, forgive _me_ since I was the one who badgered Meier into bringing me here. I was worried. When you ran away -- "

"I didn't run away."

Adonai paused for a moment. "Yes. When you... left so suddenly, none of us knew what to think. Meier suggested that perhaps you haven't quite finished healing yet. Have you?"

"I need no more of your blood." He said it harshly, to counteract the sudden greedy leap of the thirst within him.

"I wasn't speaking of physical healing, hunter," Meier said, his smile widening just a touch. "Now, are you going to stop hiding in that pond anytime soon, or shall we bring you a set of cybernetic gills?"

He almost retorted that he was not hiding. He stopped himself because defensiveness would suggest that he was indeed hiding, and because the symbiote would surely take advantage of such an obvious opportunity. There was only one dignified response -- as Meier had no doubt calculated. After a moment longer of treading, he sighed and swam to the shore.

They watched him in silence as he emerged onto the grass and checked his clothing, which was still wet. When he lifted his pants and contemplated putting them on despite the dampness, Adonai straightened with a scowl. "Do it and I'll have Meier tie you up in his cloak."

He stared at the young man, startled by both his anger and the absurd notion of a human commanding a vampire lord to do anything, much less something so undignified.

"You nearly _died,_ less than twenty-four hours ago. You've only just recently healed. Bad enough that you've spent half an hour pushing your body temperature down, but if you don't let yourself dry and warm up, if you catch a chill by putting on wet clothing..." The youth came over and stood right in front of him, so belligerent that D took a step back.

"I feel fine."

"Dhampir are just human enough to catch human diseases," the boy snapped. "And you're a prime candidate for one right now. I did _not_ nurse you back from the half-pulped mess they brought me, only to lose you to pneumonia."

After a long, wordless moment, D put the pants back on the rock.

"Good. Now." Adonai raised his wrist, and held it to D's lips. "Drink."

His mouth was open, his fangs extending, before he caught himself and jerked back. "No. I don't need -- "

"It will warm you faster than the solar lanterns would."

"I don't _need_ it!" He reached out, blindly, and shoved the boy's arm away from him --

\-- noticing the heat, the softness, the texture of every pore of the boy's skin --

\-- and clenched his fists, ignoring the symbiote's annoyed mutter.

"You will not force this on me," he snarled, trembling. "I haven't drunk from a human -- " He grimaced. "I haven't drunk _directly_ from a human in nearly three thousand years. Do you have any idea of the danger you're in? Dhampir don't need to drink... and because of that we have no physical reflex that lets us know when we've had enough. We just drink, and drink, and _drink_ until we can't drink anymore or there's nothing left to drink. We -- "

"Prince Dracul." The name -- out of another life, attached to another person -- caught him by such surprise that he flinched to silence, and turned to stare at the one who'd spoken it. Meier. The vampire paced forward, the glancing light of the solar lantern in no way diminishing his powerful, elegant grace. He looked like a panther in white.

"Adonai very likely knows more about the inner workings of dhampir than _you_ do, my prince. The Servants of Neoterre are trained in the spiritual, emotional, and physical care of the vampire-blooded for decades before they are ever permitted a client. They swear an oath to look after the needs of the people they serve -- and the greatest insult you can ever make to one of them is to imply that he is ignorant or incompetent." Meier stopped, his expression hard, looking D in the eye. "Adonai has been a Servant for three hundred years. Do not disrespect him."

D felt as if his head floated in fog; the thirst made his own blood rush so loudly that the vampire's words echoed dimly in his ears. He looked at the boy, dazed, and the boy smiled back at him. "Humans don't live three hundred years," he whispered.

"Servants of Neoterre do," Adonai replied, and in his voice, in his eyes, was a serenity that jarred D to his core. "There's much more to our alteration than just the blood-bands." He'd lowered his wrist, but now he tilted his head a little, pointing to the red circle nearest D. D's eyes locked onto it. "Anyone can get these. Servants, however, are altered on a biogenetic level. If we take care of ourselves, and if our clients take care of us, we can live to be a thousand. Not much compared to immortals..." He glanced back at Meier, then turned his smile back on D. "...but it at least makes the investment of training and preparation worthwhile. And it allows us to form bonds with our clients that they might otherwise reject, out of fear of losing us too quickly."

D could not think. Trembling, he tried to turn away. Meier's hand landed on his shoulder, gracefully, tight as a vise.

"Stay," he said, his ruby eyes gazing into D's for a moment longer. "Watch."

Meier bent, and for the span of a full second, every hunter-trained fiber of D's being shrieked as the vampire slipped an arm around the boy, drew him close, and fastened his mouth over one of the red circles.

The second passed. The hunter fell silent. The rest of him could not tear its eyes away.

He saw the slight movement of Meier's jaw, as he pierced the membrane. Watched as the vampire's throat worked, swallowing. Saw, smelled, and felt Adonai's reaction as the boy shivered and melted against Meier, eyes half-closing in pure pleasure.

Then Meier sighed, withdrew his teeth, licked the membrane closed -- it sealed instantly -- and straightened. Only the faintest hint of red lingered about his teeth when he spoke.

"That simple, hunter. Just drink. He can stop you if you try to take too much -- but I promise you, you won't want to once you've got his taste in your mouth. You'll want to make it last." He looked down at Adonai, his eyes momentarily tender. "You owe him this, after all."

That startled D out of the daze. " _Owe_?"

Adonai leaned against Meier; his eyes were still faintly glazed in the aftermath of pleasure. "Becoming a Servant of Neoterre means becoming a symbiote," he said, slurring his words ever so slightly. "We give the nightchildren blood. Our bodies work harder, better, to produce more. This is what allows us to live so long. So we give you life... and you give _us_ life." He smiled, lazily. "As you can guess, the experience is mutually enjoyable for both parties."

No. He could not hear this. He could not listen. There was danger here, so much danger.

"When... when I arrived here, hunter..."

He pulled himself out of his agitation to focus on Meier. The vampire's eyes were dark; his smile had faded and he looked away, into memory.

"When I arrived here, with Charlotte's body... I was like you. Tired. Empty. Too many years, too much loneliness, and to make matters worse I'd just lost the person who could have brightened things for at least the few years of a human lifetime. I couldn't bear it any longer. The people of the City welcomed me, but I rejected them. I sought death, instead."

He looked up. "A Servant of Neoterre -- Adonai's father -- stopped me. He made me his project. Bullied me until I accepted him, then offered me everything of himself -- _everything_ \-- until I realized that he loved me. Wanted me to love him. Not as a replacement for Charlotte; he respected my pain. But as a friend. He wanted me to know that I was _not_ alone. I could mourn Charlotte's death, mourn my old life, even go through with my plan to suicide, if I wished -- but not out of loneliness. That was the one condition he couldn't tolerate."

"I..." D faltered, overwhelmed by incipient fear. So much danger. "What... has that to do with..."

God. He couldn't even attempt that one. It was too transparent. He lifted a hand to his forehead, wishing he could somehow take hold of the confusion and terror in his mind and crush them.

"Why did you go back to the citadel, Prince?" Meier asked.

"Don't call me that," he snarled back.

"Why did you go?"

"I don't know."

"You know. Why did you go?"

"There..." He shouldn't answer. He didn't have to answer. It was none of Meier's business. "There were no more vampires. There was nowhere else to go."

"When the humans came to burn you out," Adonai asked softly, "why didn't you fight them? They would have been no match for you."

"I don't kill humans."

"You've done it before if they crossed you. I've heard all the stories. Why didn't you defend yourself?"

"There was no need. My father's chambers..."

"Were a dead end, D. If they had cornered you in there, if those rooms had not been a hidden spaceship control room, they would have killed you. Why were you there -- sitting there, _waiting_ there -- when they came for you?"

He turned away from Adonai; Meier was there, fencing him in.

"Answer him, hunter. Why?"

"Why, D?"

"Why?"

" _Because I was tired!_ " he said at last -- shouted it, spat it, anything to get the words out, to get them away from him. "Tired of boredom and no purpose and... and dying, inside. What difference would it make if I died on the outside as well?"

The wind blew in a brisk gust that skittered across the pond, leaving ripples. His skin goosebumped with the sudden chill, until Meier spread his cloak to block it. He could feel the warmth of the vampire's body -- a natural response to the presence of food -- radiating against his skin, and he shivered faintly.

Adonai stepped forward and pressed a hand against his chest. The heat of the young human's body was searing by comparison. His own body warmed in instant response.

"I'm going to seduce you now," he said, and D stared at him in mute incomprehension. The boy -- not a boy, but with a boy's ingenuousness -- smiled. "It will be partly because you're beautiful and I want you, and because you do need the blood whatever you might say. But it will also be because Servants of Neoterre are much like the vampires we serve. We hunger, too." He stood on tiptoe, leaning forward, and pressed his lips lightly against D's collarbone. D flinched. "Not for blood, of course, but something just as important. Fulfillment." He lifted a hand and caught a lock of D's hair, running it through his fingers. It made him think of Meier's caresses, back in the infirmary.

"Ful... fill..." It was hard to think with the boy so near.

"Fulfillment. For a Servant of Neoterre, that means finding a client who can be more than a client -- a client who will learn our needs as we learn theirs, and attune himself to them. Who will serve us as much as we serve them. A client who will love us. Meier became that for my father first, and then me. I'd like you to become that for me, as well."

The boy lifted a hand again, and this time brushed his wrist across D's lips, ever-so-lightly. D whimpered aloud.

Then fell silent as another hand touched him -- a pair of them, grasping his waist gently as a second body drew near from behind.

"And _I_ plan to seduce you," Meier said into his ear, "because you're beautiful and I want you. And because I told Adonai he could have you only if he agreed to share you with me."

His head cleared; he almost twisted in Meier's arms and struck at him. Did not, because the vampire's nearness, his touch, felt surprisingly good.

No. This was insane. He could not let Meier feed on him. He could not let himself feed on the boy. He couldn't even imagine what that would feel like. But God, sweet God, just to _try_ and imagine it...

He focused on what might be the weaker of the pair. "When did you go from loving Charlotte to wanting me, Meier?" he asked, meaning it to hurt. But Meier only smiled.

"I didn't. Stop loving Charlotte, or start wanting you. I still love her -- but even if she'd survived Carmilla, even if she'd become a Servant, she would be dead by now. And she never wanted me to be lonely. I started wanting you when you first attacked me to get her back. I've always wanted you. But I am a gentleman. We had other business to conclude, and get behind us, before I could pursue you properly." One hand left his waist, touched and gathered his hair away from his right shoulder. Cool lips touched the skin there. "Now circumstances are more favorable."

And before he could acknowledge the meaning of the vampire's words, before he could process the strangeness of the whole situation, they each pressed against him. Adonai and heat and hungry invitation from the front, Meier and cool seductiveness from the back. And in between --

\-- in between, every long-buried instinct, every half-acknowledged impulse, every forgotten yearning, all conspired to overwhelm him. He hissed softly, wanting to flee, wanting to attack.

"The choice is yours," Adonai said, very softly. His body, slender and lithe, brushed against D's. "Do you want us? We're a package deal, as Meier said." He smiled a little, over D's shoulder, at the vampire. "I'll admit that we've been a bit unfair, driving you to this point before asking your permission, but you _are_ the famous dhampir hunter. You can resist if you truly want to. Just say no, and we'll let you go. Leave you alone to do whatever you wish."

 _Leave you alone._ He shuddered all over with desire and anguish at once.

That's what you want, isn't it? The symbiote's voice, for once, was quiet and free of mockery. It's what you've always wanted. You killed all the others not just because they were too corrupt to live, but because you knew they needed release from their pain and loneliness. But then there was no one left to release you.

Shut up.

The symbiote rasped a chuckle. Now, when have you ever known me to do that? I'll tell you what. Send these two away and jump back in the lake. If you really don't want to come up again... I can help you do that. I owe you that much. Should be easy enough to find another host in a place like this. Maybe that little girl. So then you'll be free of me, too -- nice bonus, eh? You'll be completely alone at last. Forever.

The words drove deep, tearing as they went, as he had known they would. The symbiote knew him too well, knew his weaknesses, was too experienced in exploiting them. It was always at its most ruthless when it knew it was right. He always lost the battles when he knew it was right, too.

He was the greatest vampire hunter the Earth had ever known. He had faced ten thousand dangers -- monsters, myths, betrayals -- and defeated them all.

But he could not face this.

Not alone.

He sighed, closing his eyes. Meier chuckled, softly and triumphantly, in his ear. Adonai's hands slipped around his neck, welcoming.

They guided him down onto the cool grass, in a patch of light and shadow dappled by the trees above. He lay quiescent as they put him between them -- he on his side, Meier moulded against his back, Adonai wriggling before him. The thirst was quiescent within him, too, as if aware that it would soon be satisfied -- or perhaps it was simply that a strange new competing desire had flowered within him, nearly as powerful, responding to the scent of Meier's nearness and need. Was this what humans felt when a vampire seduced them? Did they all crave the bite like this...? He felt the sudden shock of skin against skin as the vampire de-materialized his own clothing, and then a second shock as Adonai finally managed to slip out of his robe and pressed close.

"Drink slowly, hunter," the vampire breathed in his ear, and in spite of himself he shivered at the note of raw desire in that voice. "The longer your control lasts, the longer we all may enjoy. Do you understand?"

"Yes -- " And he got no further, then, as a quick sharp pain pierced the side of his neck, and his senses were overwhelmed with the excruciating, magnificent ecstasy of dying.

He was not aware of crying out. He knew that his mouth was open only because, a few eternities after Meier began to drink from him, Adonai's throat came within reach and one of the membranes on the neck-bloodband brushed lightly, hotly, against his fangs.

And then he was inside Adonai, up to the gums in him, hissing as his mouth filled with thick rich redness and his body sang in delight. He swallowed and heard Meier growl in response as the feeding fired D's blood, changing it from a light strange nectar into a tangy, earthy elixir, the rarest and most delicious of blood, a taste like nothing Meier had experienced in five thousand years of feeding, and how did he know this? Because we are one, came Meier's thoughts back to him, echoing in his consciousness. You didn't think the blood was the only thing being shared here, did you? And beside those thoughts, enmeshed with them, they both felt Adonai's delight.

And then all thought ceased as the song became a chorus of death and life and draining and filling and hunger and satiety and dearest God, he could die like this except not with Adonai's blood flowing into him to fill the void left by Meier's hunger, not with that glorious redness trickling into his mouth and he fought to keep it a trickle, resisting the greedy urge to tear the membrane more and guzzle because he could sense the response of Adonai's altered body and it was producing more of that fresh, delicious redness with every second, enough to keep up with the trickle, and if he just matched it they would be able to lie like this forever or at least until Meier had gorged himself, which might take hours because Meier was sipping slowly as well, taking his time and savoring the exquisite flavor of dhampir on his tongue, caressing him and stroking him and coaxing him open further and against all reason, against all sanity, he wanted to give more, wanted to drink more, taking and wanting, hungering and giving, and God God God God God sweet God.

***

Pleasure.

He had visited a universe of it and liked what he found. So many layers, all intermingled, all complex. Need. Desire. Friendship. The latter had the potential to become even more complex. He had felt their joy, their care for him, during the long hours of ecstasy. Part of him had perceived the potential inherent in their caring as danger -- a threat to the long, comforting solitude of his life. It had been. It still was. But he was no longer certain solitude was the best option.

He stood now in a patch of sunlight beside the pond, gazing out over the still waters. Behind him lay the two halves of his heritage: vampire and human, sleeping with a space between them which he could reclaim whenever he wished. Before him lay... who knew? The stars. Another world. Lovers. Another life.

The prospect frightened him more than he liked to admit.

But that would not stop him. He was dhampir. He walked the twilight between the nighttime and the day, balancing on an edge as keen as a blade. He was hunter, and though there were no more corrupt nobles to hunt, there would be other prey. Other dangers. He would face them all, and he would prevail.

But not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually first published on the Vampire Hunter D ML sometime in the late Nineties; can't recall the exact date and don't feel like looking it up. (If it seems familiar to anyone, congratulations! You've got a damn good memory.)


End file.
